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Let there then be decemvirs, appointed neither by the genuine comitia,—that is to say, by the votes of the people,—nor by
that comitia convened in appearance, to keep up an ancient
custom, by the thirty lictors for the sake of the auspices. 1 See now, also, how much
greater honours he confers on these men who have received no authority from you, than we have
received, to whom you have given the most ample authority, He orders the decemvirs, 2 who have the care of the auspices, to take auspices for the sake
of conducting the colonies. “According,” says he, “to the same
right which the triumvirs had by the Sempronian law.” Do you venture, O Rullus,
even to make mention of the Sempronian law? and does not that law itself remind you that
these triumvirs have been created by the suffrages of the tribes? And while you are
1 “In after times, when the comitia curiata were little more than a matter of form, their suffrages were represented by the thirty lictors of the curiae, whose duty it was to summon the curiae when the meetings actually took place.”—Smith, Dict. Ant. p. 273 a, v. Comitia.
2 The Latin has, “decemviri pullarii”. Pullarius was the officer appointed to feed and take care of the sacred chickens that were kept for the purpose of taking the auspices; and much was inferred from the way in which they took their food, or perhaps refused it.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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